Let me repeat. VOTE THIRD PARTY. I don't care which third party. Just stop farking voting for democrats and republicans.

And for you idiots who say, "Oh, noes! That would destroy our entire political system." YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WOULD. That's called a feature. Causing a complete collapse of the existing political process is a damn sight better than armed insurrection.

OgreMagi:Let me repeat. VOTE THIRD PARTY. I don't care which third party. Just stop farking voting for democrats and republicans.

And for you idiots who say, "Oh, noes! That would destroy our entire political system." YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WOULD. That's called a feature. Causing a complete collapse of the existing political process is a damn sight better than armed insurrection.

shut_it_down:So they have their hands on all of our data... all of it. They can see who we're calling and when, and now we know for sure that they can even listen in to our phone calls and access our emails and text messages all without our knowing, oh and by the way, they can save it all for later just in case. The President is on board with this, Congress is on board with this, and the secret courts have OK'd this. Even if we could sue in the public federal courts (where there's no guarantee that we would have standing) both W and Obama approved civil and criminal immunity.

Good lord we're screwed.

Nah. The important thing here is that Presidents of both major political parties presided over this. OBAMA DID IT! BUSH DID IT! OBAMA DID IT! BUSH DID IT! RABBIT SEASON! DUCK SEASON!

Everyone can be outraged that the other guy did it, while asserting that their guy can be trusted to use these powers responsibly.

Politicians can exploit some outrage, PAC scammers can solicit funds to stop the other guys from wiretapping, and while we fight over politics the national security apparatus, which persists no matter which political party is in charge and is accountable to no voter, will continue to merrily go about its business, awaiting the firm hand of a leader with the will and audacity to use it to its full extent.

How? By voting libertarian? I've been doing that for a couple decades. The R's and D's lie about it to get elected, and then make excuses for supporting it. The D's get pissed when the R's do it. The R's get pissed when the D's do it. But when it comes down to it, our elected officials all vote to keep their power. What do you define as a 'No' vote? Not voting at all?

THIS. Keep farking that chicken, obama. glad gitmo is closed. good job putting all of those monsanto folks in governmental power, too. It is pretty interesting to see how well somebody lies pandering to good ideas only to get elected and switch to lies to cover up how farked up this country is.

bunner:OgreMagi: Let me repeat. VOTE THIRD PARTY. I don't care which third party. Just stop farking voting for democrats and republicans.

And for you idiots who say, "Oh, noes! That would destroy our entire political system." YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WOULD. That's called a feature. Causing a complete collapse of the existing political process is a damn sight better than armed insurrection.

BullBearMS:djkutch: BullBearMS: SunsetLament: There is nothing in the Patriot Act that authorizes this. Absolutely nothing. This is complete Executive branch overreach and violation of Constitutional rights.

This.

Nothing in the Patriot Act, or in the rewritten FISA law allows them to wiretap Americans without getting a warrant.

Obama has created a secret interpretation of the law and kept it from the American people.

Just as Bush had a secret interpretation of the law that he claimed would allow torture.

For more than two years, a handful of Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee have warned that the government is secretly interpreting its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming if the public - or even others in Congress - knew about it.

On Thursday, two of those senators - Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado - went further. They said a top-secret intelligence operation that is based on that secret legal theory is not as crucial to national security as executive branch officials have maintained.

The senators, who also said that Americans would be "stunned" to know what the government thought the Patriot Act allowed it to do

Thanks for being on the Democrats side.

Aside from the libertarians, it's extremely difficult to find anyone on the right in Congress even willing to criticize this. Much less call it blatantly unconstitutional as Senator Gore has done.

The author of the Patriot Act did come forward to say that nothing in the Patriot Act authorizes warrantless spying.

Cripes, even AL FRANKEN defended this! WTF??? I mean, are we actually surrounded by people that are SO bent on our destruction that we have to - ah, fark it, I can't even imagine a scenario that would justify this...

OgreMagi:Let me repeat. VOTE THIRD PARTY. I don't care which third party. Just stop farking voting for democrats and republicans.

And for you idiots who say, "Oh, noes! That would destroy our entire political system." YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WOULD. That's called a feature. Causing a complete collapse of the existing political process is a damn sight better than armed insurrection.

No, the issue, and why everybody with a even the slightest understanding of how this stuff works thinks you're in idiot, is that it wouldn't do a damned thing to our political system. Voting for a third party wastes your vote, nothing else. It does not make a statement- the people you would be trying to make a statement to do not pay attention or care. the only thing it can ever do is increase the odds of the major party candidate you would find to be the most distasteful.

Put your energy into major party primaries and fermenting public debate. What issues we're talking about and how we're talking about them matters.

LordJiro:A Dark Evil Omen: LordJiro: And there is precisely DICK any of us can do about it.

Not true. There is plenty that can be done. If you mean "there's no one to vote for", that is true, but voting does not actually qualify as "doing anything".

What do you suggest?

Withdraw support for the capitalist state as much as possible. Trade or share instead of purchasing things, when you can. Pay cash when you can, buy and sell under the counter when you can. Try to work with co-ops and labor unions; keep the decisions, information and money associated with your work local. Any way you can make money not go into the government or capitalist structures, do it.

No, it doesn't immediately dismantle the national security state, but it does take some of your information out and helps undermine all of the structures that enable and create it. It will take a lot of people withdrawing support for the systems to start failing, but every person who starts making the effort... well, that's one step closer.

0x1a4:How? By voting libertarian? I've been doing that for a couple decades. The R's and D's lie about it to get elected, and then make excuses for supporting it. The D's get pissed when the R's do it. The R's get pissed when the D's do it. But when it comes down to it, our elected officials all vote to keep their power. What do you define as a 'No' vote? Not voting at all?

The solution might be in voting for non-establishment candidates within the Republican or Democratic party. Before the primaries, there are usually one or two candidates that the party leadership has deemed the "real" candidate(s), and everybody else is fringe. Start supporting these "insurgent" candidates in the major parties if you agree with them.

cptjeff:OgreMagi: Let me repeat. VOTE THIRD PARTY. I don't care which third party. Just stop farking voting for democrats and republicans.

And for you idiots who say, "Oh, noes! That would destroy our entire political system." YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT IT WOULD. That's called a feature. Causing a complete collapse of the existing political process is a damn sight better than armed insurrection.

No, the issue, and why everybody with a even the slightest understanding of how this stuff works thinks you're in idiot, is that it wouldn't do a damned thing to our political system. Voting for a third party wastes your vote, nothing else. It does not make a statement- the people you would be trying to make a statement to do not pay attention or care. the only thing it can ever do is increase the odds of the major party candidate you would find to be the most distasteful.

Put your energy into major party primaries and fermenting public debate. What issues we're talking about and how we're talking about them matters.

Standard sock puppet answer. It will waste your vote, so you must vote for a republican/democrat.

No, it doesn't farking waste my vote. There is no chance in hell I will ever again vote for a democrat or republican. Because voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. I will vote my conscious and not care if it swings to vote for some criminal with a D or R after his name, because it doesn't farking matter which one wins. You get the same result.

Look at how things were done under Bush. Compare them to how things are now being done under Obama. Do you see a difference? No, you don't. Because they both work for the same farking party. The "we have the power so fark the people" party.

You are part of the problem. You help perpetuate the lie that a third party vote is a waste and a bad thing. You've been brainwashed into believing that shiat and you help pass along "the one true message." People like you are pathetic tools.

Evil High Priest:The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.

fark you! And tomorrow's 'acknowledgement' will be that they record ALL CALLS, domestic and foreign. Keep those shoes dropping, you farks.

You're right, every few days it get's worse and worse. But at least we're getting closer to the truth. But god damn, how can anyone have any trust in the government. I still have some trust in the system but the players I cannot believe a word from.

Dozens of fark-tards have sworn the obama administration is just noting the time stamp of calls and not listening to the content.

I'm sure they have the integrity to now step forward and admit they are naive tw*ts.

Just like they did when they were wrong about the boston bomber being a tea-party member.Just like they did when they were wrong about the Family Resource Center shooter being a tea-party member.Just like they did when they were wrong about the TX IRS building attacker being a tea-party member.Just like they did when they were wrong about the Family Resource Center shooter wasn't a tea-party member.Just like they did when they were wrong about claiming their obamessiah would never renew the patriot act.Just like they did when they were wrong about claiming obama's batfe was not selling guns to drug lords.

The surveillance was already established, but Bush cemented it with the PATRIOT act. And at the time, liberals were TELLING you cowardly shiatheads that, once given this power, the government would never get rid of it.

The PATRIOT act was probably our last chance to deal any sort of lasting damage to the surveillance state. We should have fought it. Instead, we let them exploit our fear of 'terrorists' to put the final nail in privacy's coffin.

Look, I don't like it more than anyone else, but if we don't allow this slight intrusion on our privacy, do you know what would happen? JONES would come back!!! Comrades, don't you remember how terrible it was when Jones was running thing???

OgreMagi:Look at how things were done under Bush. Compare them to how things are now being done under Obama. Do you see a difference? No, you don't.

Yes, I do. I see quite a few differences. Not as many as I'd like to see on this issue, but if you can't see quite a few very major differences between Bush and Obama, then I'm glad you're choosing to remove yourself from even the tiny levels of influence you might have had.